Wexham Park Hospital boss replaced following clash with watchdog

Dr Tim Lincoln, chairman of Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Trust resigned on Monday and Monitor, the independent regulator of NHS foundation trusts, has used its formal powers of intervention to appoint with immediate affect Chris Langley, formally managing director of Dixons, as interim chair.
Dr Lincoln stepped down after Monitor rejected a turnaround plan last week that the trust developed after it emerged it had serious financial and performance problems earlier this year.
Monitor had told the board to form a recovery plan after it found in July after it discovered "a rapid decline in their financial and operational performance."
In a statement Monitor said: "Monitor's Board did not consider that this plan was robust enough to ensure the trust's return to a sustainable position, or that it demonstrated that the Trust had in place the board and clinical leadership necessary to achieve this.
"Monitor is now intervening to ensure that the trust has the board-level leadership and capacity needed to return to a secure position, while at the same time ensuring patient care remains the highest priority. We will also be requiring the Trust to take steps to strengthen its clinical leadership, as it is clear that this will be needed to drive the level of organisational and resourcing change necessary to address the challenges it faces."
Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was been rated as fair for overall quality and fair for financial management by the Care Quality Commission yesterday.
Chief Executive, Julie Burgess said this result was "disappointing... but not unexpected." She said: "They relate to the year ending March 2009, action plans have been put in place to address the issues raised by the review, and we have made significant improvements since then."